Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

Yes the Hanabi festival has returned to the VC making previously unreleased games from the land of the rising sun available to us European folk. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!

Available for download this week we have...

• Columns III
• Final Soldier
• Gradius II

Points: 900
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Released: 1994
System: Megadrive

For anyone who hasn't played Columns, it's like Tetris... except not and instead of various shapes blocks fall in well... columns; these in turn consist of random combinations of jewels of which you must match three in a row or more to disperse them before your screen fills up.

Blocks can be matched not only vertically and horizontally but also diagonally; chain reactions are also possible and there is a "special" block which can make all of the same colour block it touches disappear which appears once in a blue moon.

So yeah thats basically how the concept works and it made the original a standout single player puzzle game with a decent two player mode to boot; forget the fact that number two never reached the Megadrive and we are left with three which eschews the endless single player in favor of an almost completely multiplayer dominated experience which has support for up to five players, which is all well and good if you can find that many people to play it with you, but you won't unless you pay them so it's a reluctantly redundant feature.

What was fun in the original is no longer present here as all Sega has done is strip the basic block busting action of it's fun by just adding in a load of special blocks which appear far too frequently, tacking on a tragic amount of terrible and tedious "extra" modes and thus making the game suck more than Kirby suffering from asphyxiation.

It's a completely needless sequel for the sake of an idea that would never take off; the appeal of the original was derived from the entertaining, attention draining single player mode which back in the day you could play for hours and still enjoy it. Making a multiplayer, multi-layered mockery of the original only served to destroy the good that was once there; make no mistake that this is a sequel that need not have existed and it's no wonder Sega choose not to release it outside of Japan back in the day and begs the question of why they even created it in the first place.

Verdict : Painfully placid puzzle pointlessness.

Points: 700
Publisher: Hudson
Developer: Hudson
Released: 1991
System: Turbografx

Another shooter bearing the "soldier" precursor from Hudson makes it's way to the virtual console and is a most welcome addition to the already existing entourage of vertical shooters. Following up from Super Star Soldier this top-notch example of it's genre provides a refreshingly familiar experience with a few pleasantly surprising elements.

The alternate style of weapon made available to you makes for a different way of play which adds to the overall enjoyment level rather well; your arsenal can be exchanged through the game with coloured power ups enabling a certain degree of appreciated freedom in a game thats linear in structure.

Stages are satisfyingly lengthy if only slightly repetitive but for the most part always enjoyable; the controls are nice and responsive, visuals are suitably detailed, sound is decent and does the job and the overall frame-rate holds up well with not a dip in sight.

For the points it's a reasonably good deal as you get seven superb levels and an extra score attack mode to mess around with once your done with the main story mode. If you know you love schmups then god knows you'll like this, so if you need your fix and want something you've most likely never played before then go for this.

Verdict : A satisfyingly solid shooter.

Points: 900
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Released: 1988
System: Turbografx CD

The legend that is Vic Viper returns once more in the continuing battle against the Bacterion Empire who is now headed up by the evil Gofer; so get ready to annihilate some aliens. From the start this is a very different Gradius game as it's the first one that lets you choose your preferred power-up configuration, classic weapons return as well as new ones including photon torpedos, spread bombs and the tailgun.

If your serious about schmups then you will have no doubt experienced the difficulty of these type of games before but this takes things to a new level as it's most probably the most difficult game in the series which throws everything it has at you right from the very first firefight.

As you journey through the game you'll experience many varied levels and enemy formations all brought together with fantastic visual flair and audible accompaniment. From the flashy intro, to the classic rock sound track right through to the behemoth boss battles this truly is a superb shooting experience.

You already know if you like this type of game so if you like your shmups hard and unforgiving but uniquely rewarding for persevering then you'll most likely love this. Everyone else should probably avoid it though if you get easily frustrated but otherwise this is well worth the points and is another welcome addition to the VC compendium.

Verdict : A satisfying, soul sapping, superior shooting experience.

Thats it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
[email protected]

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